Academic Assassins (6 page)

How long had it been since I turned on a television? Months, probably. Nearly a year. I had no idea what was even on anymore.

“Where's my popcorn?” Babyface demanded.

Funny, I thought. That sounded like something I'd say.

Grayson knocked Babyface upside his head with a VHS cassette—
a VHS cassette? What is this? The Stone Age?
Impact made a hollow plastic—
THWACK
.

“
Ow!”
he shouted. “What's the big deal, man?”

Grayson slipped the cassette into the VCR and pressed play without a word.

Showtime.

It took the television a moment to warm up. A distorted image slowly materialized from the murky black depths of the fish-tank screen. Blues and reds were washed out in a bland sheen of murky
algae green. The corners of the screen had burnt out, leaving behind brown blots where no image could emerge.

A young woman wearing a pantsuit with enormous shoulder pads and a plasticized perm waltzed among the flowers before the building we were now in. She addressed the camera with a warm smile, as
if she were talking just to us.

To me.

“
Welcome to the Kesey Reclamation Center
,” she said.
“We are a private residency program that provides specialized education services for teenagers with social and
emotional difficulties. Our students have a broad range of psychological and emotional conditions—including personality and thought disorders, clinical depression, attention deficit disorder,
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as a history of general delinquency that prevents them from functioning in the traditional
classroom environment….”

Don't tell me. Not another touchy-feely summer camp.

No—something about this place was different from New Leaf. I couldn't put a finger on it, but my Spidey-senses had been shrieking ever since we arrived here.

Wait a minute, I thought. That woman in the video.

I recognized her.

It was the program director. Merridew. Only…
younger
. She no longer had that football helmet of a blonde perm—but I was positive it was her.

“
Kesey stands on five acres of land generously donated by the city in the hopes of rehabilitating and reeducating our next generation of young leaders….
”

“This is where we wash, rinse, and tumble dry your brain.” Babyface held out his hand, palm up, and waved, total game-show hostess-style.

Who writes this kid's material?

Grayson thwacked him upside the head with his palm. “Pipe down.”

“I can sue you for abuse, you know!”

“Be my guest.”

Babyface sure didn't seem to have any problem repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth—kinda like someone I used to know.

Back to the video tour. Kesey was its own self-sustainable kingdom. It had its own power plant and water supply. It even had a hospital. Kesey was a completely self-contained city-within-a-city
for a world that would rather forget its citizens.

We would never leave this place.

The younger Merridew passed by a cluster of buzz-cutted kids on their knees, busy planting a colorful array of flowers alongside the walls of the building.

Those kids must be in their forties by now.

Or dead.

“Our wonderfully lush gardens have become a point of pride for Kesey,”
she declared.
“Residents have the privilege of spending a portion of their day tending to the
beautiful begonia and bloodroot flowers that cloak our campus every spring….”

“You telling me I've got to garden?” Babyface shook his head. “Forget that.”

There was an abrupt edit in the video. Merridew was now walking along a yellow line painted down the middle of the main hallway. Her enthusiasm was as impenetrable as her perm. That plastered-on
rictus never cracked, always smiling at the camera. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was looking directly at me.

“From everyone in our administration, we want to wish you a healthy recovery. It does not matter how many other institutions you have tried. Kesey will welcome you with open arms. Our
main goal is to reclaim your—”

Grayson slammed his palm over the power button and the screen went black.

Guess the grand tour's over.

“First lesson of the day,” he said. “Kesey is not a juvenile detention center. Juvie would be too good for you. Kesey is not a military academy, though every staff member here
has been trained for combat. We are at war and you are the enemy. Kesey is not a loony bin. To earn yourself a reservation in this palace, you've got to be beyond bonkers. The God's
honest truth—Kesey is all of these things. Only worse. Much worse. 'Cause Kesey is the only place that could house the likes of
you
.”

He stared straight at me, fuming through his nose, as if he expected me to react. He was taking me in. Sizing me up. Assessing me to see what I was made of.

I could tell he wanted me to lash out.

Did he actually want me to hit him?

“What's the matter?” he asked, a grin slowly creeping across his lips. “Wanna call your mommy and daddy?
Help me, Mommy! Save me, Daddy! I'm swo
scwared!
”

The grin quickly evaporated from his face.

“Nobody's gonna save you, kid. Not anymore. You did this to yourself; now you've gotta suffer the consequences all on your lonesome—and I'm here to help.”

From this close up, the more I could focus on the imperfections of his face—the craggy curve of his miss-set nose, broken a few too many times to heal correctly ever again; ragged channels
of flesh from past stitch work, his cheeks sutured into train tracks; a slender white scar along his lower lip. Not to mention the missing ear. All I saw was a jigsaw puzzle that had been put back
together wrong. Rather than snap the appropriate pieces in their proper place, whoever had worked on it decided to force the interlocking tabs into whatever order they wanted, jumbling the picture
up altogether. What was left was a face full of mismatched features.

“The brochure says we are a residential center that specializes in youth offenders with mental disorders and
blah blah blah
,” he said. “That's a bunch of bull.
We're in the business of warehousing human beings down here—and business is booming, thanks to you. We are a zoo and you are the animals. Is that understood?”

What is up with this drill instructor? Had he been fired from military school?

I decided to stare at the floor.

Apparently, that wasn't the right choice. Grayson slammed his heel on my foot. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but my throat tightened around the shout and shoved the sound back
into my chest before it could escape.

Grayson leaned his face into mine, our noses nearly touching.

“Is that understood?”

Babyface raised his hand. Grayson turned and stared, repulsed at the mere presence of this kid. “
What?
”

“There must've been some kinda mistake.” Babyface shook his head. “I'm not supposed to be here. They got me locked up in the wrong place.”

Grayson smiled. You could tell he loved his job. Welcoming in the fresh meat.

“Oh yeah?” he asked. “Why's that?”

“I'm not crazy—like her.” Babyface pointed to Nailbiter. “Or him.”

He pointed at me.

That stung.

“You might not be crazy now,” Grayson said. “But trust me—you will be.”

Grayson pointed to the yellow line painted on the floor. It extended out from the room and across the entire length of the hallway, much like the divider lines on a highway. The slender thread
of paint snaked around the far corner and disappeared.

“Rule one,” he shouted. “
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
. Your feet should never step off the yellow line. Even for a second, even just a toe. Is that
understood?”

Silence. Were we supposed to answer him?

“Here are rules two through twenty.” Grayson jabbed his finger at a list taped to the wall. “I don't care if you tattoo them to the back of your hand—you will know
these rules by the end of the day. If you can't spout every last one back at me before lights out, you're spending the night in the Black Hole. Is that understood?”

We all nodded this time.

Crystal clear.

Nailbiter was dragged off to the Hive. That's the nickname for the girls' ward. She turned to me as one of Grayson's fellow Men in White took her by the arm.

“Get me out get me out get meeeeee ooout….”

Even after she disappeared down the Yellow Brick Road, I could hear her voice. It lost its shape as she slipped away, until it didn't sound human anymore.

THE GROUND RULES

No running for the fence.

No weapons.

No harassment or bullying.

No hairstyles.

No school supplies: pens, pencils, or Magic Markers.

No vandalism or gang activity.

No tobacco, drugs, or alcohol.

No outside food (unless it has been authorized).

No chewing gum or candy.

No civilian attire, hoodies, or baseball caps.

No jewelry of any kind.

No cell phones, electronic devices, portable video games, MP3 players, or musical devices of any kind.

No freedom. No escape. No getting out of here alive
.…

They were going to take our hair away. “To prevent spreading lice.” Grayson beamed, and I caught a glimpse of his stained teeth. Probably drank too much coffee.

Babyface sat down in the swiveling barber chair first. If he didn't look like a tyke when he had his hair, he sure looked like a toddler once it was all gone.

Somebody get this kid a diaper.

Our brainwashed barber couldn't have been older than fourteen himself. The first thing I noticed about him was the dog collar wrapped around his neck.

Just like the kids in the garden, I thought. Does everybody wear one of these?

A red flashing light at the back pulsed in a steady rhythm, almost like a heartbeat. I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of a wire snaking around his throat.

“All jobs here at Kesey are filled by residents,” Grayson explained over the buzz of the clippers. “Everybody's got chores to do, just like happy li'l worker
ants.”

“Next.” Our barber nodded to me.

I sat down and he draped a smock over my shoulders.

“Hold still.”

The buzz of the clipper's teeth vibrated through my bones.

“
We cut our hair as a show of solidarity
,” I remembered Peashooter had said when he forced the Tribe to shave our heads. “
Consider it an act of tribal
camaraderie.
”

That had been a lie. This was how people like Peashooter—plus places like Kesey—took your individuality away. No hair, no identity. Just buzzed skulls.

You become a cog in the wheel.

Nameless.

Faceless.

Nothing but another number.

Bits of my hair drifted to the floor, like autumn leaves falling to the ground.

Not that there was much to cut. My lawyer had made me sheer off the bird's nest of dreadlocked hair perched on my head right before my trial. I hadn't recognized the boy that had
slowly emerged from underneath that tangled mess, staring back at me from the hair salon mirror. I still didn't recognize him now.

Just who are you, Spencer?

I hadn't a clue.

I want to be nobody, I thought. As soon as you're somebody, everybody's after you. So I'm nobody.

I repeated the word in my head, over and over again, as the shiny dome of my scalp slowly emerged from underneath the clipper's buzzing teeth.

Nobody.

Nobody.

Nobody….

The Yellow Brick Road stopped in the basement. The only door was the one Grayson led Babyface and me through, a green-tiled dead end.

Last stop—the dungeon?

The air was thick with mildew. This basement seemed like a hotbed for athlete's lung, and for a moment, I worried my asthma might kick in again.

I hadn't taken a hit from My Little Friend for over four months now, wherever he was. Who knows where my poor inhaler had gone off to?

Miss you, buddy….

“Stand together,” Grayson instructed. “Shoulder to shoulder.”

A herd of mice scurried over my feet. I did a quick double take. Painted along their furry backs, I could've sworn I saw symbols. Black runes or mystical hieroglyphs. They slipped behind
an unplugged washing machine against the wall before I could get a good look.

Great, I thought. I'm already seeing things.

Twenty industrial washers lined up along the wall. Each machine had a glass door hinged to its steel facade, like a row of monstrously monocled cyclopes glaring back at me. Zoned-out teenagers
crammed damp clothes down the gullets of each machine's massive revolving basket. Every resident had his own collar.

“My name is Fido,”
Babyface muttered.
“If missing, please call my owners at—”

That was my joke! I was just about to say—okay,
think
—something just like that. This kid was starting to steal the comedic thunder of my internal monologue….

Grayson scanned the room before bringing his fingers to his lips and whistling. “Everybody out—
now!
”

On command, residents dropped their laundry in mid-fold and shuffled off. None made eye contact with me. They all looked zonked.